Google is rolling out new AI-powered experimental features with Google Translation, designed to help people practice and learn new languages, the company announced Tuesday. Translate also gains new live features, making it easier to communicate in real time with people who speak another language.
The new language practice features are designed for advanced speakers that aim to both beginners to begin learning conversational skills and speak advanced speakers, the company says. To do this, create tailored listening and speaking practice sessions that adapt to the user's skill level and unique learning goals.
With this new language practice feature, Google is taking on Duolingo, a popular language learning app that uses a gamerized approach to help users practice over 40 languages.
Image credit: Google
To access the features, select the “Practice” option in the Google Translate app. From there you can set your skill level and goals. Google Translate generates customized scenarios where you can listen to conversations and tap on the words you hear to build understanding or practice. The exercise tracks the user's daily progress, Google says.
Beta Experience will be rolling out on the Google Translate app for Android and iOS starting Tuesday. This feature is first available to English speakers who practice Spanish and French, as well as Spanish, French and Portuguese speakers to practice English.
Google also introduces the ability to interact with audio and on-screen translations via a translation app.
“Based on existing live conversation experiences, the Advanced AI model makes it even easier to have live conversations in over 70 languages, including Arabic, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish and Tamil,” Google wrote in a blog post.
TechCrunch Events
San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025
Image credit: Google
Tap the “Live Translate” option in the Translate app and choose the language you want to translate simply by speaking. You can then hear the translation aloud along with the transcription of the conversation in both languages. The app translates and switches between the two languages you and others are talking to.
Google points out that this feature can identify pauses, accents and intonations, allowing for natural sound conversations.
This feature separates sounds using Google's speech recognition model and speech recognition model. This means you can use live features at large restaurants or busy airports.
These live translation features will be available to users in the US, India and Mexico starting Tuesday.
“These updates have been made possible by advances in AI and machine learning,” Google wrote in a blog post. “As we continue to push the boundaries of language processing and understanding, we can serve a wider range of languages and improve translation quality and speed. And with the Gemini model of translation, we have made great strides in translation quality, multimodal translation, and Text-to-Pick (TTS) capabilities.”
Google says people are translating about 1 trillion words across translations, searches, lenses and circles. The company believes these new AI-powered features will help overcome language barriers.